NRF Sejong Science Fellowship
Offers postdoctoral fellowship support for talented researchers in Korea to pursue independent long-term scientific careers.
The NRF Sejong Science Fellowship is a postdoctoral fellowship program operated by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) under MSIT authority, providing annual awards of 100 to 250 million KRW for up to five years. The FY2026 first-tranche call was announced on November 13, 2025 under MSIT Notice No. 2025-1005, jointly issued by MSIT Minister Kyung-hoon Bae and NRF President Won-Hwa Hong, with guidelines released on November 20, 2025. The call appears as item number 45 on the NRF English Call for Proposals index and forms one of seven sub-tracks in the FY2026 first tranche.
The fellowship operates across four sub-tracks: domestic training, overseas training, return (κ·κ΅), and recruitment (μ μΉ). Award amounts and per-track eligibility criteria β including years since doctorate and institution type β vary by sub-track and are specified in the Korean-language HWP/PDF attachments published November 20, 2025. The program is open to individual postdoctoral researchers; it is not structured for research groups or institutional applications. Affiliated institutions may be Korean universities or public research organizations. All application materials are in Korean; no English application route is offered.
The Sejong Fellowship sits within the Young Scientist Grants program (NRF biz_no=319) as a named track. Submission and evaluation follow the standard NRF four-stage process: preliminary qualification review, expert review, PM Consultative Group allocation, and final MSIT Program Committee confirmation. Screening criteria include creativity, spirit of challenge, and researcher capability and prior achievements. Applications opened in the December 2025 to January 2026 window with Q1βQ2 2026 deadlines. Prospective applicants should retrieve the full guidelines from ernd.nrf.re.kr and identify whether they qualify under the domestic, overseas, return, or recruitment track before applying, as eligibility rules differ substantially between tracks.
Supports Korean postdoctoral researchers in science and engineering across four tracks β domestic training, overseas training, return, and recruitment β with awards of 100 to 250 million KRW per year for up to five years.
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